Three good things. Every day.

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You may have noticed that today’s title is the same as yesterday’s. I wasn’t feeling very well today, so I didn’t get up to very much – just the basics:

I took Daisy for a reasonably long walk this morning.

I did some marathon reading, and finished up three YA books today: Z by Michael Thomas Ford (a very average zombie novel that my students will love),The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal (a fantastic fantasy novel full of political intrigue that I loved, but that will probably only appeal to my fantasy readers), andHow to Save a Life by Sara Zarr (a surprisingly insightful realistic fiction about two teenage girls: one whose father recently died and whose mother has decided to cope with her grief by adopting a baby, and the other the girl who is giving her baby up for adoption. My eighth grade girls will eat this one up, although its length may be a little intimidating for them).

I called my HR department to find out how tuition reimbursement works in my school district, and I think I’m all set to sign up for a grad school class.

Today (or yesterday, really, because I’m posting this a little late) was not a very productive day for me – I’m not really even sure where the day went. But here are the few things that I did get done:

I took the dog for a nice long walk.

I read Shineby Lauren Myracle, which is a nominee for the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award. I wasn’t very impressed by it – it was a little too much of a Problem Novel, with the characters feeling a little flat outside of their Issues, and occasionally a little far-fetched that they could have such dramatically different personalities hidden under the surface, and not really reveal them before the book’s climax.

I called my brother, who’s about to buy his first house – I think he closes on it tomorrow. Very exciting!

Today actually turned out to be a pretty busy day, despite the fact that I spent most of it in my pajamas:

Daisy’s ears started bothering her a lot last night, so I took her to the vet to discover that she has an ear infection in both ears! But we’ve got her on medication now, so hopefully she’ll get to feeling better soon.

I’ve decided I could use a little more structure to the rest of my summer, so I started looking for part-time tutoring work on Craigslist. I’m already in touch with a woman who’s looking for GRE tutoring, and I think I’m going to apply to work for a company that provides a curriculum for homeschooled students.

Here’s what I got up to today (other than playing Avadon for a good chunk of the afternoon):

I checked on our garden, picked a few more cherry tomatoes, and pruned off some tomato leaves that weren’t doing so well. Last year, our tomato plants developed a whole lot of yellow leaves for some reason, and we found that trimming them off seemed to keep whatever the problem was from spreading as quickly. And despite a whole bunch of major pruning last year, we still had an amazing tomato crop. So this year I plan to be more on top of trimming off the dead and dying leaves, and hopefully that will help the plant do even better.

I went to the grocery store nice and early.

Daisy and I went to the dog park. It wasn’t one of our best visits – we went in the middle of the afternoon, so there was only one other dog there for a little bit. But we still had a good time, and our dog park is located inside a bigger park, so we had a nice (if overly humid) walk to and from the dog park.

A couple of years ago, friends of ours gave out the best wedding favors ever at their chilly outdoor evening wedding: fuzzy purple fleece blankets. We love them and they are now our favorite throw blankets. But not as much as Daisy. She seriously adores this blanket – I think she likes it more than food, even. So she’ll put up with just about anything when she’s lying on it – even being wrapped up in it, which she won’t put up with if we use any other blanket/coat/dog sweater/really anything else.

Oh, hi.

I seem to be wrapped up in this blanket.

It’s okay, though, I’m kind of tired anyway. And this blanket is pretty soft and comfortable.

Yesterday was extremely busy for me, so I didn’t have a chance to post. But (briefly), here are three good things from yesterday:

1. Having lunch with one of my best friends from college and getting a chance to catch up. (She’s also in a similar place in life, so it was really great to share and commiserate and give/receive advice).

2. As I drove to meet her, I went slightly out of range of my favorite radio station and had to listen to commercial radio for a little bit, which always makes me a little sad. I think I listened to more radio commercials yesterday than I had so far this year. But I did hear Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis not once, but twice. And even though it is a little preachy in its message, it still makes me happy to hear it being played on a commercial radio station. The music video is also beautiful.

3. Dinner with a set of J’s friends from college, including an adorable dog and – best of all – an 18-month-old toddler. He was adorable, and showed all of the traits I love about toddlers. He happens to be in a phase where he’s fascinated by how doors work, so he spent minutes at a time (which is hours in toddler time) opening and closing doors repeatedly. But the absolute cutest thing was when he would throw a tennis ball for the dog, and the dog would spaz out because she was so excited about the ball, and the toddler would be thrilled and giggle and shriek with joy.